The cast in the UCL collection is a replica of the Piltdown man skull, of which fragments were found by Charles Dawson at a site in Sussex, who then took them to Woodward at the Natural History Museum to be studied. The fragments were originally thought to belong to the ‘missing link’ in the chain of evolution that had been theorised by Darwin, as the skull had human characteristics but the jaw bone seemed to be more similar to that of an ape - it was termed ‘eanthropus dawsoni’ (Dawson’s Dawn Man). After approximately forty years, however, with the introduction of fluorine dating methods, it was discovered that the fragments were a hoax, having been stained in coloured and the teeth filed out of shape; they were in fact just human and ape bones no older than 50,000 years that had been manipulated to appear to belong to the same individual. The cast shown is based on the reconstruction of the skull by Arthur Keith, wherein the orange sections represent the fossils that were found.

The impact of this hoax was to set back the study of human evolution by four decades, at a time when evolution and its study were receiving a lot of attention from academics, as the theory of an evolutionary development of the human race had been largely accepted by the scientific community. This hoax was so convincing, in fact, that other genuine fossils were often disregarded as they did not fit the dominant theory that the Piltdown man supported. Darwin’s revolutionary work, On the Origin of Species, had been published in 1859, only about half a century prior to this discovery, and the series of other legitimate discoveries made at the time in this field.  This cast reconstruction represents part of the process that occurred in those 50 years since - an acceptance of the secularization of human origins (in much, but certainly not all, of society) and the enthusiasm of contemporary academics and institutions to understand and record the history of human evolution. Even now, despite being debunked as a hoax, the cast is a symbol of the fervour with which scientists wanted to legitimise and embrace evolutionary theory.

• Natural History Museum, 2016a. Cranium and Mandible Reconstruction (Piltdown 1 & 2). [image] Available at: http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/results.asp?image=002800 [Accessed 21 Feb. 2016].

• Natural History Museum, 2016b. Piltdown Man. [online] Nhm.ac.uk. Available at: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/library-and-archives/collections/piltdown-man.html [Accessed 21 Feb. 2016].

• Oakley, K. P. & Weiner, J. S., 1955. Piltdown Man. American Scientist, 43(4), pp. 573-583.